​How To Ensure A Perfectly Centered Zipper Application

A center zipper application entails that the the zipper teeth are perfectly aligned between two equally spaced plackets. Not only do the placket edges should abut perfectly at the zipper opening, the zipper teeth should be completely hidden and centered at this abutted area. blending smoothly into the rest of the seam at the bottom. There is a simple technique you can use to not only ensure a perfectly centered zipper, but also a much more comfortable application process. 

1. Align the seam edge housing the zipper with face sides touching as you would any conventional seam and pin perpendicularly to secure the two layers together. Using the zipper, measure and mark the zipper's bottom directly on the seam allowance using a quilting pencil or tailors chalk. 

2. Starting from the bottom, stitch the seam using a regular stitch following the designated seam allowance - 1" in this case. When arriving at the marked bottom zipper location, backstitch to reinforce. 

3. Switch your stitch setting to machine basting stitch, or longest stitch available on your sewing machine, and continue stitching forward until you reach the top of the seam. The machine basting should cover the entire portion of the zipper closure. 

4. Clip the machine basting (only) every 5-6 stitches using a seam ripper as shown above. 

5. Open the seam allowance layers gently and iron them open being careful not to accidentally  pull the basted portion apart. 

6. Open the zipper all the way down and placing the zipper face down, align one portion of the zipper tape tp the corresponding seam allowance layer such that the zipper teeth fall directly on the seamline. Pinning the initial portion while the zipper is fully open will ensure that that the zipper teeth are aligned perfectly with the centered zipper opening in the final application. 

7. Once the first portion of the zipper is stitched and secure, the zipper is fully closed with naturally aligns the second portion of the zipper tape perfectly with its corresponding seam allowance layer. 

8. Once the zipper is fully stitched, the basted seam edges are pulled apart to release the clipped stitching. This should be fairly easy to do without requiring too much pulling. All you have to do to complete the zipper application is to pull the loose threads from the seam edges. 

As a result, you should have a perfectly aligned zipper that is centered underneath the two zipper plackets. This is made extremely easy by the use of machine basting, and the initial open zipper alignment.